Benedictine College - Raven Yearbook (Atchison, KS)

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The .story of 1'rad1'Zio11 ages old-A and of Nt. Be11ed1'ct's looking to tl proud past and a 52171 more g107'1'0HS fzlfure. by Joseph S. Thompson, '34 Personnel HE personnel of St. Benedict's is part of a teaching institution centuries old, yet ageless as knowledge itself. Truth is ever changeless-knowl- edge now the same as that taught by Socrates on the Acropolis in the days of Grecian glory. New facts are daily added, it is true, to the mass accumulated through the cycles of time, but that which was really true a long two thousand years ago is still the good and the beautiful of today. Such a garnering of science, such a preservation of truth, could not have been accomplished by a transitory group of men whose duty and accomplish- ment ended with the death of its members, it could be brought about only by an undying corporate body, as is found in a religious group, whose life began in the dim past and whose journey's end is as unannounceable as the day of the heavenly trumpets. Thus it is that a religious order is peculiarly adapted to fine teaching. The members have bartered their lives for the eternal years of the future and they are content to spend even a lifetime in fashioning superbly some bit of the mosaic of great accomplishment which, perhaps generations later, will be the completed masterpiece of the order. So it is with the sons of St. Benedict. Fifteen centuries ago they brought truth to the men of Gaul, to the fields of Alsace, to the tribal towns in the valley of the Rhine. Through the years they have marched abreast of pro- Rt. Rev. Martin Veth, O.S.B., LL.D. Pn's1'r1r'nI JU' ihe College A counterpart to the progress and growth of the entire order is found within the ranks of the monks at St. Benedict's College. Age is there-age with its wis- dom and its sage counsels and its lending of an at- mosphere of quiet safety, but that St. Benedict's may not lose the age-old spirit of progress held by the order, there always lives its youthful leaders, men with a vision before them of far peaks glistening with the snows of untouched learning, and of fertile valleys of new truth yet to he made fruitful for the benefit of America's youth. This union of quiet wisdom and boundless vision has brought to St. Benedict's the same successful teach- ing methods that have ever characterized the Monks of the West, methods that have enabled them to con- duct the greatest school of the Middle Ages, methods that have prepared Benedictines to hold professorial gress, securing everything new, preserving all the good of the past. chairs in the best of the 20th century's universities and colleges. In seeking to perfect these methods, and in search of still higher learning, the teaching personnel of St. Benedict's traverses a world-wide pathway, studying in schools far-flung over the earth. All have attended the universities of the United States. Notre Dame, johns Hopkins, Harvard, Michigan, Catholic Universi- ty, Iowa, Columbia, Wisconsin, and others throughout this country have upon their student rosters the names of St. Benedict's teachers. Europe, too, has seen them in its universities, its laboratories, its conservatories. The city of the Caesars has known a half score of them, Paris, Berlin, Munich, and misty Louvain in its quiet Flemish beauty, have all heard their feet upon cobbled streets. Thus St. Benedict's blends atmospheres old and new for her students. 5

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The whyfor of college and four short years - as it appears to the type editor Just How Much? HE discussion began in class. The professor, who, because of skill in thought provocation, justly deserved his title, often wondered whether a college of arts and sciences was of any particular benefit to its students, since, almost to a man, they would of necessity have to enter a trade or professional school upon graduation. Would it not be much more economical of money and the years of life to attend only a tech- nical school of concentrated training in a particular calling? Some classroom discussions are forgotten with the closing bell. This one was not. It provoked talk among more than a few, and, greater than this, it agitated collegiate thought concerning just how much benefit there existed in a liberal education. When the question was looked at coldly, was there any reason for such an education? Wasn't a technical school, after all, better from the very start? If college were only a place for one to spend four years while others progressed in their professions or trades, then a college education would be a detriment to the student. He would act far more wisely upon gradua- tion from high school, to enter at once upon his chosen profession, en- gineering, law, medicine, writing, and the rest, by entering a school where such subjects were concentrated upon. But it seems, after four years of college, that education is really more than a book-apprenticeship to some trade. Professional training is neces- sary, there is no escape from that admission, but if preceded by that which is really education, the profession itself becomes something alive, more than a mere means of livelihood, and the why of it all becomes under- stadnable. There will exist the same difference in the man before and after the why is discovered, as there exists between the reasoning of the technician building a machine by experiment, and the man putting it together on the assembly line. The first knows why a shaft is placed here, a cam there, the second knows only that it is to be so placed. The same rule applies to life. A highly skilled graduate in any pro- fession, unless he has a broad foundational education, will never realize the why of his work, will never live his work, will never derive from it- which is his life-the last measure of satisfaction, but will always be re- mote from it, knowing only certain physical laws, never realizing a com- plete education. Specialization emphatically is not to be frowned upon. It is the 1ife's blood of modern progress and makes for a high degree of perfection in all forms of endeavor. It sometimes, though, becomes identihed with the utilitarian side of a profession and then becomes the god of the specialist. Endeavor concentrated upon one phase of an object is certainly permiss- ible, but it can and should be built upon broad foundations, whose per- spective can still be seen even when seated upon the house-tops of special- ized work. 4

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Have Richgi You Met- Kerr, '37 ATHER Hubert Blocker, professor of biology, re- ceived his advanced training in several universi- ties. He studied at the universities of Notre Dame, Iowa, and Michigan, where he received his doctor's degree in 1932. He has invented improve- ments for laboratory apparatus and was offered a re- search fellowship by Michigan University. Father Louis Baska is chairman of the economics department. His graduate studies brought him into contact With the largest universities in America, as Chicago, Wis- consin, Catholic University, and Harvard. He finished the work for his doctor's degree at Catholic University. Father Gervase Burke, professor of English, re- ceived his education in America, Italy, and Canada. He is now acting head of the English department. Father Colman Farrell, head librarian, has wide knowl- edge and much experience in library science. He at- tended such schools as Notre Dame and the University of Michigan, where he received his master's title. For several summers he served on the faculty of the Cath- olic University and spent a year at the Library of Con- gress, where he classihed religious books. Father Lucien Senecal, professor of French, has been familiar with the language from childhood. He studied French for several years at St. Benedict's, and devoted two years to graduate work at the University of Iowa. Father Sebastian Weissenberger, professor of German and Spanish, a product of both American and German educational systems, is very familiar with the German language. He received his master's de- gree at the Catholic University of America. Father Pius Pretz, professor of mathematics, be- sides having received his master's degree from St. john's University, devoted two years to advanced study of mathematics at the University of Chicago. Father Malachy Sullivan, professor of philosophy, studied at Notre Dame and the University of Illinois. He devoted three more years to advanced study at the University of Louvain, Belgium, where he obtained his doctor's title. Mr. john E. Donovan, chairman of the chemistry department, attended school at the universities of New Hampshire and New York. He taught for several years at New York University and has had much prac- tical experience in industry with the American Potash Company. 6 Left to right- Fathers Hubert Blocker, Felix Nolte, Cuthbert McDonald Fathers Colman Farrell, Adrian Stallbaumer, Malachy Sullivan Fathers Pius Pretz, Sebastian Weissenberger, Charles Aziere Dr. john E. Donovan, Fathers Edward Schmitz, Jerome Merwick Fathers Paschal Pretz, Lucien Senccal, Louis Baska ,Q I g,.. A . stii i f ,.